


If thou gaze long into an abyss

by maya28



Category: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (Movies)
Genre: Abuse, Alternate Universe - Vampire, Credence Barebone Gets a Hug, Credence Barebone Needs a Hug, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, Flashbacks, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, M/M, Mystery, Non-Chronological, Non-Linear Narrative, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Rape/Non-con Elements, Religious Guilt, Vampire Original Percival Graves, Vampires, things that go bump in the night - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-01-20
Updated: 2017-01-28
Packaged: 2018-09-18 16:49:13
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,540
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9394340
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/maya28/pseuds/maya28
Summary: Months after her stepson's disappearance, Mary Lou Barebone is shocked by the news of his return. Broken and bleeding, the boy has escaped the darkness and found his way back into the Light.His survival at the hand of those creatures defies belief, and Mary Lou starts to wonder whether there is more to the boy's story. And the monster who took him.





	1. A mother

Mary Lou Barebone was kneeling for her evening prayer when the knock came. The sudden and violent rapping startled her, but when she rose she did it slowly, walking unhurriedly towards the door. 

The priest was waiting outside, a sort of wild exaltation contained in his cold eyes.

“We found him!” The words burst out of him without a greeting. ”Madam Barebone, the Lord is merciful! We found your boy!”

Mary Lou allowed the shock to course through her without touching a single muscle of her face. 

“Credence? You found Credence?”

“I can hardly believe it myself. He was found huddling outside the church just an hour ago. Trying to find shelter. The Lord has returned him to us!” His words carried the hint of a laugh, betraying his excitement. 

Mary Lou could still do nothing more than blink.

“But we all thought… Is… How did he get back? Is he...” She struggled to find a polite ending to her sentence.

The constrained joy flickered off of the priest’s face like a blown candle. His eyes lighted up with cold fury.

“Forgive me, I did not mean to frighten you. He’s alive and out of harm’s way. However…I should warn you... escaping those beasts has taken a toll on him. The Lord gave him back to us... but not before the Devil has left his mark on him.” 

The Devil’s mark. Mary Lou understood immediately, and, almost despite herself and for the first time in years, she felt a swell of pity for the boy. It was quickly swallowed up by her disgust.

“I want to see him.”

“Of course, Madam. I was waiting to fetch you before... talking to him properly.”

Mary Lou nodded and went inside to quickly grab her coat and scarf. They walked quickly together along the cobbled path towards the church, both of them letting the silence cover their turbulent thoughts. 

She still couldn’t quite believe that Credence was back. When he had first disappeared almost a year ago, everyone had assumed the worst. Not that he had met an unfortunate accident, but that he had ventured too far into the shadows. And the shadows had swallowed him up.

Mary Lou had accepted his fate with the same lucid apathy with which she embraced her own. The boy had always been weak of faith, so there was no wonder the Lord hadn’t deigned to protect him. 

But he was alive. All this time… She dreaded to think what those beasts had done to him over months and months. They had never heard of someone surviving them for this long. Most of the stories they had were told by the corpses littering the alleys, their clothes ripped to shreds and puncture wounds covering their throats. 

She had often expected to see Credence’s body crumpled among all the rest. But apparently that hadn’t been his fate. The Lord couldn’t have been so merciful to someone so wicked.

When they arrived at the church, the priest led her through the narrow corridors of the underground level, through a dimly lit hallway and into a windowless room, bathed in the harsh light of several lamps.

And there was Credence.

Mary Lou stood frozen in the doorway, taking in the sight of her stepson. 

Credence sat huddled on a high table, a coarse blanket wrapped around his shoulders. The old nurse stood next to him, murmuring something too quiet to hear and holding a steaming cup. His clothes, mere rags shredded beyond recognition, barely hung on his body. Mary Lou noticed the red splashes mottling the fabric and wondered absently whether the wetness was from the afternoon rain or a fresh wound. His fingers clutched the blanket in a white-knuckled grip, his body rocking back and forth, for either warmth or comfort. His head was bent over, the fall of his hair obscuring his face. It was longer than it had been, the severe cut blended into soft curls that brushed his neck. His neck… Mary Lou couldn’t suppress a gasp.

The skin looked raw and bruised, as if mauled by the hungry teeth of an animal. The bite marks stood in stark relief against the purplish tint of the area surrounding them, some of them glistening wet and obviously fresh.

At the soft sound she made Credence’s head snapped up.

His eyes instantly found hers, staring at her with a startling intensity. A tangle of emotion contorted his features, but then he took a shuddering breath and his eyes filled with tears.

He rose from the table, stumbling and trembling, and fell to his knees before her. His arms came around her waist and he burrowed his face against her stomach, seeking her nearness, her forgiveness. He began to cry.

***

“My son. The Lord will hear your penance. Just open your soul to him and He will cleanse you of your sins.” The priest’s broad hand gripped Credence’s knee.” You have to tell us what happened.”

Credence swallowed, tensing at the touch. Mary Lou thought distantly that the priest was being very undiscerning with his hands given the boy’s obvious trauma, and that it was unlikely to be an accidental move. What they needed most was knowledge.

Credence was sat back on the table, the steaming cup in his hands. They had removed what was left of his clothes in order to properly examine his body, the blanket now the only scrap of material protecting his modesty. What they had found told the story more clearly than the boy ever could, but they still needed to hear it from his own lips. Confession alone could save his soul.

The priest had coaxed him into retelling the night of his disappearance, the storm, the dark shadow of the man who found him and took him. The boy had been talking slowly, each word painstakingly ripped from him. But then they asked him if the man had hurt him, and Credence had been unable to utter another sound.

His eyes were fluttering around the room, averted from the piercing stare of the priest.

“Credence, you have to tell the Lord your sorrows. Only He can forgive you, but only if you tell us the truth.”

“I don’t… I can’t remember all of it.” His voice was softer, almost translucent. “It was dark. It was always so dark.”

The priest leaned forward. Mary Lou straightened.

“Did he touch you?”

Credence startled. His eyes locked on hers for a second, then jumped back on the wall.

“Did he… I don’t know what...” 

“Did he touch you in perverted ways? In ways your body is not meant to be touched?”

Credence was just staring at him, his lips opening and closing without a sound. His eyes looked huge his haunted face.

The priest seemed carved from granite.

“Did he sodomize you, Credence?”

The words seemed to slap him out of his shock. He whispered in a strangled voice:

“I’m sorry. Please, he... He did...he... touched me. He...” A sob ripped out of his chest and his whole body heaved. Tears overflowed his reddened eyes and trailed down his cheeks. “I’m sorry. It wasn’t my fault. He was strong… And I tried, I really did...I tried to run… but he caught me and… I didn’t mean -”

Mary Lou stepped forwards and slapped him across the face. The resounding crack reverberated in the small room, leaving behind a deafening silence. Credence looked at her blankly, before curling in on himself and continuing to cry. Subdued.

The priest let out a heavy sigh.

“The devil resides in creatures such as him, my boy. You did not surround yourself with the Lord’s light and you became a prey for the shadows. You have to admit your own responsibility for this wickedness in order to be forgiven.” He let the silence stretch for two heartbeats. ”Did he feed on you as well?”

Credence nodded, his breath coming out in rasping gasps amid his now uncontrollable crying.

“Sometimes several...several times a day. When he...When he s-sodomized me… he liked to feed as well. He said he enjoyed it more. He would… he would hold me down... He said he could taste it in the b-blood. He liked tasting the p-pain.”

The priest sighed heavily. 

“You poor, poor creature. But did you fight back against the Devil? Did you try to protect your soul?”

The boy pressed his lips together until they turned white. He took another breath.

“I tried. I swear I did. I’m so sorry… I…” He choked on his own spit. His breathing picked up, and then he made an obvious effort to control it. 

“He was so much stronger than me… and he… he liked it. He liked it when I struggled, when I fought him.”

Mary Lou felt the sneer twisting her lips. She was aware of the kind of perversions those creatures enjoyed, but this animal was even worse than his brethren.

The priest nodded, his eyes never leaving Credence’s face.

“Credence. Credence look at me”

The boy lifted his tremulous gaze to the priest’s grey and unforgiving stare.

“Have you told us the truth Credence?”

Credence’s eyes widened and his words tumbled out in a breathless plea. “I did. I swear, I did.”

“Do you swear on your soul that you’ve told us nothing but the truth?”

“I swear... I swear nothing I said was a lie.” 

He drew the blanket tighter around his body. The despoiled body of a sinner, now marked with the wounds of his own shame. The bite marks that stretched beyond his neck, littering his torso and the inside of his thighs. The finger-shaped bruises around his wrists and hips.

Mary Lou watched him cry, his whole body heaving with sobs. His nose had started running as well, snot mixing with his heavy tears and trailing down over his bitten red lips. His shoulders were hunched and trembling, his head held low as if to protect the ravaged mess of his neck. His arms were wound tight around himself as if to prevent his body from shattering to pieces. He looked miserable and disgusting in his weakness, like a beaten dog groveling at her feet.

She took in his cowering shape and thought that those vile creatures had succeeded in breaking the boy in a way she never had. 

However…

Her mind flitted back to the moment when she had first laid eyes on him not two hours before. His ravaged state had been just as obvious, but his face hadn’t been streaked by the tears of his grief. Then again, she thought charitably, recounting the memories of his time with that monster must have taken its toll on the boy's fragile spirit. 

But his eyes… that look he’d given her… that wasn’t the look of a broken soul. 

Beyond his bruises and his trembling form, in that second when their gazes met, his dark eyes had shone with an animalistic alertness, a sharp awareness she had never seen from her bumbling step-son. Even when she had laid the metal of his belt across his palms, she had sensed nothing from the boy but a dull acceptance.

That unholy feeling of wrongness had lasted only a second, flashing across Credence’s features like lightning, before his eyes had clouded with tears.

She straightened the cuffs of her sleeves, then carefully pasted a smile on her face. Just the perfect proportion of grief and resolve. 

“Now now Credence. You must stay strong in front of the hardships the Lord lays on you. Crying is an important start on your road to penance, but there is a lot to do before the Lord will grant you forgiveness for all this wickedness.” She turned her smile on the priest.

“Thank you for all that you’ve done, Father. We will seek your council every step of the way through this dark time.”

The priest, who had seemed touched despite himself by Credence’s pain, seemed to shake himself out of his momentary weakness.

“Of course, Madam Barebone. They boy has suffered a lot for his faith, but he must remain firm in his resolve. He has been delivered to us from the darkness, bearing the marks of the Devil himself. His experience will be undoubtedly invaluable for our efforts and his pain will bring the salvation of countless souls. And with enough prayer and penance, the Lord will forgive the impurity of his flesh.”

Credence was nodding along numbly, his eyes swollen and leaking incessantly. “Yes, Father. Thank you, Father. I hope...I hope I can cleanse myself of this...this sin.”

The priest rested his hand on the back of his neck in a reflexive gesture of comfort. The tips of his fingers pressed on the inflamed edge of one of the bites. Credence flinched.

A few seconds too late.

Mary Lou’s eyes narrowed. 

The priest rambled on, oblivious. “Don’t shy away from the pain, my son. Pain is the touch of the Devil being scourged from your flesh.”

Credence swallowed. “Yes, Father.”

“Trust in the Lord, Credence. You have unburdened your soul and confessed your sins. Your honesty and remorse are the first steps. Trust in the Lord, and He will save you, my boy.”

Credence tensed again, and his eyes seemed to brim with fresh tears. He blinked them back, and his face returned to an expression of fearful hope. 

“Yes, Father.”


	2. A son

“Credence!”

Thirteen years and Mary Lou’s voice hadn’t lost the power to make him flinch.

Credence turned towards her, keeping his head slightly bowed and his eyes on the rapidly growing puddle at her feet.

The rain had been relentless, the slow rumbling of distant thunder threatening violence. Just like her voice.

Credence glanced at his sisters, pale and formless next to their mother’s imposing presence. Chastity was expressionless, well on her way to perfecting Mary Lou’s cold stare. Modesty was watching him with worry, one small hand clutching her sister’s sleeve while the other tried to shield her face from the rain.

“You have barely given any leaflets.”

He didn’t say anything. Excuses and pleads for forgiveness only ignited her temper.

“You’ve got nothing to say to that?” Another pause. Mary Lou knew how to use silence to the best effect.

“Very well. I see no reason why your sisters should suffer more in this rain just because you won’t pull your weight. You will stay here until after dinner and finish your work.”

Credence saw Modesty’s eyes flicker to the darkening sky. She opened her mouth to say something, but he was quicker.

“Yes, Ma”

“Good. And Credence?”

He looked at her then. He was so accustomed to the undulations of her voice, the meaning behind every pause and rise in volume, that the appropriate responses came automatically. She had trained him well.

“Don’t you dare throw away a single leaflet. The Lord sees. And I will know.”

“Yes, Ma.”

She turned and walked away at her usual brisk pace. Modesty was looking at him still, but her sister took her by the hand and dragged her away as well.

Credence didn’t bother looking up. He knew it would get dark soon.

***

The rain worsened after sunset. There hadn’t been a single soul in sight for the better part of an hour, and Credence was quickly coming to the conclusion that his chore was hopeless.

He was soaked through, his thin jacket a bit more than useless against the incessant pouring. The leaflets themselves, which he tried to shield with his own body, smeared ink across his fingers.

He would go home. Dinner should have finished by now, so at least part of Mary Lou’s orders had been followed through. He was sure she had never expected him to actually succeed in distributing all the leaflets, so there was no point in dragging out the inevitable.

Who could he have given them to?

The people around those parts were God fearing Christians and rarely went out after dark, the threat hidden in the night more than most were willing to risk. He probably should have been more afraid of being here alone, the rain like shards in the light of the street lamps. But the fear wouldn’t come, smothered by a familiar numbness.

Credence flexed his left fist, the swollen gashes on his palm throbbing.

He let the leaflets fall into a puddle and started walking.

***

Credence walked slowly, unbothered by the now frequent bursts of lightning. Tomorrow they would do another sermon, and there would be more leaflets, and more people looking at him with pity or indifference.

He took a turn away from the main road.

But they had a responsibility towards those people. Most were weak-minded and faithless, oblivious about the creatures the Devil had unleashed on this world. They wouldn’t believe that when the shadows fell there was no salvation but in the Lord’s Light.

He found himself along the familiar alley leading home and slowed his pace even more. The downpour made it difficult to see anything, but he knew what awaited him at the end.

Some kept leaving their homes after sunset, heedless of the warnings. Some never returned. Some of the bodies did.

He would not be afraid. The Lord would protect him always.

There was a faint thump.

Credence froze.

The sound had come from right ahead. He briefly contemplated running past it, but if it was what he feared, running blindly would be unbelievably stupid. He should turn around and take another route home.

Turning his back would be equally stupid.

He stood motionless and tried to make out what he was seeing.

The alley stretching ahead was barely visible, the shapes of the uneven walls, bins, and litter all bleeding into each other. He looked for movement, but everything seemed to ripple. Lightning flashed.

Credence’s knees nearly buckled, and he had to viciously strangle the scream rising from his throat.

Now that he knew where to look, he could see it even in the returning darkness. They were intertwined like the couples he sometimes glimpsed in alleys, lost in sinful acts his mother had often warned him about. Someone else might have overlooked the tightness of the embrace, the unnatural angle of the bent head, the doll-like limpness of a body, the sounds… the _wet, slurping sounds_.

Adrenaline shot through his veins like lightning. He knew this feeling well. Always followed by a cold voice and the swipe of cold metal across his skin.

He took a breath and tried to think. Fear numbs the mind, and that was where the first danger always lied. It was the difference between a hit landing on his face or having the presence of mind to know the words that would forestall it. _Think_.

They were animals. The priest said they were ruled by instincts and primal behaviors.

Scent. The wind was blowing against his face, so that shouldn’t give him away.

Hearing. He tried to regulate his erratic breathing, just in case it could be heard over the splattering of the rain against the concrete.

Sight. It hadn’t seen him or heard him approach, so maybe its intense focus on its victim would save him. He pressed slightly closer to the wall.

He would have to wait his chance.

Credence kept his eyes rooted to the grotesque picture before him, so he almost didn’t notice the movement to the right.

Two shapes rose from the umbra concealing the opposite wall. The wraiths seemed to take contour out of the darkness like drops of water merging on a window.

The monster dropped its prey.

“Good evening, Mr. Fulham”. The voice of the wraith, it’s suddenness, its normalcy, its _humanity _, was far more jarring than the nightmare he had just glimpsed.__

____

“I’m sorry to see our last conversation seems to have slipped your mind.”

____

The man's voice, for it was too deep to be a woman’s, had the slightly exasperated quality of a put-upon teacher.

____

The monster was startled by the voice as well and made an aborted sound. It jerked like a cornered animal.

____

It tried to run.

____

And its body was promptly slammed into the wall.

____

Neither of the wraiths had moved a muscle.

____

Credence was watching everything unfold with growing fascination bordering on hysteria. So the priest’s words held the truth. Those creatures had abilities above the powers of mere humans. Gifts the Devil had bestowed on them to terrorize the faithful. Credence felt the violent need to pray.

____

“Don’t be unnecessarily difficult, please. Tina, if you would.”

____

“Yes, my lord.”

____

Names. Credence tried to commit them to memory. Every bit of information he could bring back would prove invaluable to their efforts.

____

And a lord. They were obviously organized into strict social hierarchies, the swiftness with which the smaller wraith complied proof of inherent respect and obedience.

____

_“Yes, Ma”_

____

Or fear.

____

The man... _the creature_ was obviously the most dangerous.

____

He had to leave before they saw him.

____

Credence shifted his weight on his back leg, agonizing between the almost animalistic need to run and the knowledge that any movement might bring his doom.

____

The wind changed.

____

The creature’s head snapped to the left and its dark eyes focused on Credence.

____

Credence ran.

____


End file.
